


practical skills

by andthen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Season 2, rbficexchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4644660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthen/pseuds/andthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for personaeleven for the rbficexchange</p>
<p>Prompt 3: Bellamy trains Raven to fight (bonus if her leg is already injured and they have to figure that out) and Raven tries to teach him engineering (or something else! whether he gets it is up to you)</p>
            </blockquote>





	practical skills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [personaeleven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/personaeleven/gifts).



“So Kane and Abby know about the little fight club you got going on at the dropship?”

Raven had rounded a corner determinedly just as Bellamy was passing by, purposefully setting herself directly in his path at just the right moment. She had to have been waiting for him awhile to successfully manage that ambush.

She stood in front of him, left eyebrow partially raised as she awaited his answer. Just a slight step forward and she would’ve stepped on his boots. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight from one foot to another -- not looking away from her for a second. His jaw clenched.

“It would  _hardly_  qualify as a fight club.” He started, already on the defense. “They’re learning  _practical_  skills in a safe environment. Basic things that they need to know. Things they  _would_  know if the Guard wasn’t so stringent with who they teach self-defense to. This whole camp could do with a lesson or two. Not everyone gets to walk around with guns.”

“ _Relax_.” She was grinning.

But his arms were still crossed and his gaze was still set on her, searching for some sign of where she was going with this. Abby and Kane finding out was the last thing he wanted.

“I guess it’s settled then,” She suddenly said, as though in surrender. “Morning is more ideal. I want to say quarter to six? Twice – actually, let’s just leave it at once a week for now. You’re on a trial basis.”

“What exactly are we talking about here?” He still wasn’t following, but the look on his face said his interest was definitely piqued.

“Practical skills, Blake.” She said, extra emphasis on the first two words. “ _Learning what this whole camp could use a lesson of_. Your words, not mine.”

And before he could even respond she was walking away, her back to him, not even bothering to hear his response.

“And I guess I could throw in a lesson of my own in return.” She called back, still walking.

As he watched her back get further and further away, he couldn’t figure out if he’d just been mocked, conned, or both.

 

 ■

 

They’d made the hour walk down to the dropship that following Saturday morning.

When she’d first entered, she was surprised at how much the shit he and Miller had managed to lug all the way down from Camp Jaha undetected. She’d counted 3punching bags, two mats, and six pairs of boxing gloves. And there were a couple more things she couldn’t make out in one of the corners. They’d taken it all from one of the three weight rooms the Guard had reserved off for training cadets and lifting. 

“You realize how much shit you’re gonna be in when they find out, right?” 

“They won’t.” He said unfazed. “They never go in the room we took it from anymore. It was all just gathering dust.”

And he was right. After a little over two months of relative peace you’d be hard pressed to find anyone thinking about the need for tactical training or combat prep around camp. The danger was removed and understandably, people wanted to look optimistically towards their new earthbound future. But as the Camp had become more relaxed, Bellamy had just become more unsettled, almost just waiting expectantly for the next big event to occur. And after careful observation of the Guard for a few weeks, he came to realize that they hadn’t used any of their weight rooms in almost a solid month. With that knowledge he’d chosen the farthest, most underused one out of the three, and had Miller find out the access code.

Since then the two had been heading up self-defense lessons down at the dropship, with Octavia or Lincoln leading every so often. Bellamy would show what he learned in his pre-training with the Arc Guard as a cadet, using Miller as a partner, and Octavia and Lincoln demonstrated techniques they’d learned from the Grounders. They usually attracted a group of ten to fifteen, mostly comprised of the kids who’d been imprisoned at Mt. Weather, but technically anyone was welcome. So long as they didn’t let it get back to the Guard or Kane and Abby.

Bellamy dropped his bag on the floor and then looked over at Raven impatiently. “So are we doing this or what?”

 

■

 

After making her do some preliminary arm stretches for five minutes, they were finally beginning.

“You want to keep your hands up,” He started, instructing her by doing so with his own.

She copied his posture but it wasn’t quite right, so he moved in and guided her arms up a bit higher before letting go.

He was starting her out on a punching bag. While things may have been limited because of her leg, there was still a lot she could do with her upper body.

With her in front of the punching bag, he got beside it and gripped so it wouldn’t sway.

“Now grip your fists tight. Thumbs on top. And have at it.”

But she was already punching the bag hard before he could finish the ‘And.’

 

■

 

After the first lesson they fell into a casual routine of meeting every Saturday or Sunday morning. Sometimes both days, depending on what Raven was up for.

One time, on the walk over to the dropship, he asked her how exactly she’d found out about it all.

“I don’t give up my sources.” She said.

He shook his head. “Definitely Monty. You guys work together. Had to be.”

It was.

And her averting his eyes only confirmed it.

It’d happened when Monty had walked into the workshop with a fresh shiner about two weeks ago. Of course her first response was ‘Who the fuck did this’ and ‘Where the fuck can I find them.’ He’d stayed quiet on who, citing it as a "freak accident," but all the rest of the details she’d managed to successfully prod out of him within a few hours.

“Well you probably shouldn’t have sent him home with a black eye.” She said to Bellamy.

“No one was expecting him to fall face first into Miller’s knee.”

 

 ■

 

In between the third or fourth week of lessons Raven suddenly remembered her offer to teach him and on whichever Saturday or Sunday they’d train, they started following that up with Bellamy’s lessons in the evening.

First there was the initial frustration of realizing a lot of the ‘basic’ stuff she wanted to teach him wasn’t basic enough at all and required a lot of prior knowledge that he just hadn’t had.

“How do you  _not_  know that?” She said in disbelief after she’d asked him if he knew about some random law that would sound foreign to anyone other than a mechanical engineer. And his expression wore the same disbelief, as if saying  _how did you actually_ expect _me to?_

  
And when she finally settled on tasking him with taking a radio apart just to learn how to put it back together, there was even more frustration for the way he’d fail to do something. He’d sit in the workshop noting her every instruction like an attentive, but slightly confused student. Every time he attempted to follow those instructions however, no sooner could he put a finger on a part before he eventually heard “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG, BLAKE.”

“ _No_ , actually that’s  _exactly_  what I did.” He argued once. Probably more.

“ _No_ , actually, what you  _exactly_  did was do exactly opposite of what I showed you.”

She got really into it though, even going so far as to give him occasional, small homework assignments.

The closest she ever came to giving compliments was the rare “ _Not bad_.”

Eventually they cut the lessons down to every other week when his work duty got a little more demanding but they still kept them up nonetheless.

 

 ■

 

Alternatively, after nearly a month of jabbing at a punching bag, that whole routine had grown stale for Raven.

“If I knew you were going to just put me in front of a bag every damn time I could’ve done this alone,” She challenged.

“What’d you have in mind?”

“Anything other than this, for starters. Aren’t you the teacher?”

He decided to bring her on the mat and cover the best areas to hit someone to buy time. Like under the nose because it could knock them out. Or the solar plexus to wind them. Or the ribs because they’d hurt like hell.

“You never want to hit someone under the eye.” Bellamy told her. “It’s probably one of the hardest areas of the face. It might do more damage to you than who you hit.”

It explained the shattering pain her hand felt when it’d met Clarke’s face that one time.

But this still wasn’t what Raven wanted. And she goaded him on for more.

He was hesitant though.

“So obviously certain things are off the table--” He began. 

“And obviously I can manage,” She cut him off.

He started to say something but decided against it.

 

 ■

 

From there on he'd begun showing her some fighting techniques and maneuvers, but they always had to be extra mindful of her leg.

Then one day they fall.

It’s nothing serious, and barely enough to knock the wind out of them for a few seconds but it’s still enough to temporarily scare the shit out of Bellamy.

Bellamy was behind her with his arm wrapped loosely around her neck, his chest against her back.

(This was vaguely familiar.)

She was supposed to lift his arm up and twist away from his hold. She’d done it fine the first two times but on the third her brace gets in the way and she’s falling.

When she begins to slip he catches her almost immediately but the momentum is already so much that they end up falling anyway. He tries to position himself so that he takes the brunt of the fall but it doesn’t really work and when they hit the ground he nearly lands right on top of her. They’re both out of breath and so close their noses nearly graze.

“ _Raven_ ,” He couldn’t hide his concern if he tried.

“Shit,” She whispered. “I can’t…”

He looked on imploringly. “Can’t?”

“ _I can’t feel my_   _leg_ ,” But she could barely get that out before breaking into hysterics as he just starred on.

“Real cute.”

He stood up as abruptly as they fell, leaving her alone on the floor still laughing.

“There’s going to be no point to all this if you just end up injured.” He tried to scold but didn’t really succeed.

 

 ■ 

 

(As much as either of them might’ve complained, before they knew it their lessons had mutually become the highlights of their weeks. They’d definitely never vocally admit it though.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> @ personaeleven: hi, i'm sorry if the ends kind of abrupt and isn't that long. it's my first fic and so i wasn't entirely sure about a lot of stuff but i still hope you can find some part of it you like, thanks for the prompt!


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